


Time's a'Changin'

by Red (Red_Balloons)



Category: The Simpsons
Genre: Bart's bitter, Homer apologizes, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lisa's distant, Maggie and Marge are only mentioned, Open Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27671099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Balloons/pseuds/Red
Summary: Homer apologizes.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Time's a'Changin'

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Arianna. I'm so fucking sorry it took so long to come out and my only excuse for it is shit happened. I hope it was worth the wait and if not, I'm really, really sorry you waited for something you ended up not liking.

Marge hummed in the kitchen as she cleaned up from dinner. Lisa was upstairs, settling into her old room for the next couple of days. Bart was outside on his phone, talking with his boss about - and here Homer wasn’t completely certain he had heard his son correctly - a missing dancer. And Homer himself was sitting on the couch, listening to his wife and waiting for his children to come back to the living room.

A lot had happened in this room, in this house, that Homer was both fond of and loathed. So many happy memories and so many horrible mistakes had been done and found out about in this room. Most of them were his fault. He knows that. Almost every mistake he’d made had hurt his family, and that would be his biggest regret in life - hurting them was far from what he had wanted when he married Marge, when they had found out she was pregnant with Bart, Lisa, and then Maggie. (Maggie, his baby girl, had moved across the country the very moment she could and that was why she wasn’t here with her older siblings despite the holiday break. And that, too, was his fault, but he’ll work on fixing that the next time he saw Maggie face-to-face.)

“Dad?”

Lisa’s hesitant call drew Homer out of his head, his eyes quickly darting over to where she lingered on the stairs. She stood tall and strong, even if the look on her face was wary. Despite having Homer’s hair color, she looked like Marge had in her youth before their marriage. Acted like her too, at times. Smart and whip-quick with her words to prove it.

“I’m alright, Lise.”

Marge still hummed away in the kitchen.

Lisa was slow as she moved closer to him, eyes tracking over his face carefully. It took moments for her to reach the couch, but the whole time was tense with unspoken words. And was filled with the echoes of spoken accusations that ranged throughout Lisa’s lifetime. “Alright then,” she decided as she settled down beside him, turning her stare onto the television.

Homer watched her for a few moments before doing the same. His throat was stiff as he swallowed the ball of emotion back, letting the news distract him long enough for Bart to come back inside. The young man hadn’t hesitated like Lisa had; he walked with slow, certain steps, the vibe about him lazy and indifferent in a way Homer knew he never was. Bart, for all that many had believed otherwise as he grew up, was not slow. He wasn’t unobservant. He was everything Lisa was with the added cool indifference he built as he grew older.

Like Lisa’s hesitance was a glaring sign of Homer’s wrongdoings, Bart’s ability to shut himself off to his emotions reminded the father of how much he had put them both through.

The television hit a quiet few seconds the same time Marge’s humming got loud before they switched. Lisa shook her head beside Homer, a fond smile on her face. Bart snorted quietly into his chest, his posture relaxing the longer Homer stayed quiet.

The older man stewed in his thoughts until a commercial break came. Then he turned to both of his kids, head echoing with every memory and throat filled with the regret each one lanced through him, and he said, “I’m sorry.”

Bart’s reaction was more dynamic than Lisa’s - she froze and turned to look at him, eyes wide and mouth loose but not quiet dropped open - as he jerked into an upright position and leaned forward to stare at his father around Lisa. Both reactions hurt. Both were expected and justifiable. Homer didn’t like apologizing he didn’t like talking about emotions. But this was important to him.

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for,” Lisa whispers, shifting to face him further.

“Everything.”

Homer watches as they registered his words. Lisa blinked slowly a few times before rolling her shoulders, a tic of hers that made her discomfort and confusion obvious to her father. Bart looked openly disbelieving, his eyes hard as he stared the older Simpson down.

“Everything.”

“Yes; the choking, the belittling, the ignoring,” Homer explained. “Everything.”

Lisa shifted to lean a bit into her brother, physically pushing him away as a means to calm Bart down. “Why now?”

“Your mother and I are thinking on selling the house,” Homer answered. He shook his head when the two went to speak, “Don’t. We’re both too old now to take care of this place without help and your mother is having trouble climbing the stairs on her own these days. But we’d been going through everything to see how much of it needs to be put into storage and I’ve just realized how much I missed, ignored, or ruined for you both and Maggie. It got me thinking and, I’m sorry.”

Homer takes the distrustful scoff his son gives him without comment. Their stares met and the older man was the first to look away, down and to the right, giving his daughter as much time as she needed to think over her own reaction.

Marge’s song was coming to an end.

“Thanks Dad,” Lisa eventually says. The tone she used was soft and thoughtful. “At least you recognized the damage you did to us growing up,” she adds for Bart’s benefit.

“I’m not forgiving him.”

“Neither of you have to do anything,” Homer says, bringing his gaze back up to them both. “I didn’t apologize to get anything from you. You’re both adults and even before recent times I knew you both only visited us because of your mother. She did so much better than me and I wouldn’t want to take that from her, even to ease my own guilt.”


End file.
